Atom & Cosmos

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TAKE TWO Philae’s intended landing spot (left, imaged from 40 meters above the comet’s surface) was soft and sandy. A two-hour-long bounce dropped it in a craggy pit (right, with lander leg at bottom) where the ground is as hard as pumice.

DLR/ROLIS/Philae/Rosetta/ESA (left), CIVA/Philae/Rosetta/ESA (right)

SHINY Auroral lights, like those seen on Earth, shimmer in the atmosphere encircling the pole of the dim star LSR J1835 + 3259in this artist’s illustration.

Chuck Carter and Gregg Hallinan/Caltech

Mountains of water ice roughly as tall as the Rockies tower over a young landscape to the south of Pluto’s heart-shaped region. Snows of nitrogen and methane blanket the peaks. On the dwarf planet, water ice probably behaves like bedrock on Earth.